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Re: [Phys-l] googology



Thanks John. Your beginning searches are not unlike mine or even my students. I suspect one problem I have, and students really have, is not recognizing the dead-ends soon enough.

The search on <usgs gravity> yields over 400,000 hits... some of which look promising... but they aren't. So how many are you going to look at before you realize you probably should try a narrower search? I probably spent 3 or 4 minutes on the first couple pages of this hit list before I tried a new search.

My next search was <usgs gravity publications> thinking I might find an online version of what I have on paper. No luck again.

I next tried <usgs gravity publications ohio>.

The very first hit from this search is...

http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/321/ilinoh_indmap.htm

On that page is a link to the Bouguer Gravity Anomaly Map for Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. I was actually there some time ago, before I asked you how you found the Texas site, but I never scrolled down far enough. Had I done so, there is a statement near the end of that page stating that the data for the map came from the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) / PACES research center... and that's the site you found. Bingo.

So I find it interesting that I initially did not find the site you found after I searched for 5 to 10 minutes. But just now I tried it again, and because I read a bit further on the page with the Bouguer map, I found the site in just a minute or two. I guess sometimes you need to have some luck about how far you read on a site, and what catches your eye.

If you read too much on a site that isn't going to get you where you want to go, you waste time. But if you don't read enough on a site that *is* going to get you where you want to go, then you miss out. It's tough to know when to move on versus when to keep reading. Initially I read too much on worthless sites and not enough on a site I thought was worthless.

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
1 University Drive
Bluffton, OH 45817
419.358.3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu


--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Denker" <jsd@av8n.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 7:30 PM
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Subject: [Phys-l] googology

On 04/20/2008 02:33 PM, Michael Edmiston wrote:
So John, can you
provide some insights as to how you found that site so fast?

According to my browser "history", and looking on which links
have been visited:

+++ Google: usgs gravity
|
\--- http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of02-353/gravitymaps.html
(dead end)

+++ Google: usgs gravity data
|
\--- http://tin.er.usgs.gov/metadata/usgravboug.faq.html
(dead end, except that I learned the word "Bouguer")

+++ Google: usgs gravity bouguer

+++ Google Images: usgs gravity bouguer
| (lots of pretty pictures)
|
\--- http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0078-95/FS078-95.html
(dead end; data is offline, DVD only)

+++ Google: usgs gravity bouguer ohio
|
\+++ http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/321/ilinoh_boug.htm
| (very nice ... and credits UTEP/PACER)
|
\+++ http://irpsrvgis00.utep.edu/repositorywebsite/
(BINGO! Game over.)


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